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Daily Archives: 13 May, 2010

No2ID sprang out of a one-day conference held at the LSE in May 2004, organised by Privacy International and sponsored by skeptical technical website the Register. “Mistaken Identity?” was intended to discuss the Home Office proposals for a national identity scheme. Showing the same level of interest in dialogue, analysis and informed public debate that they were to show for the next six years, no representative or supporter of the then government’s point of view could be persuaded to appear; not David Blunkett, nor any Home Office official. Intended as a seminar, the meeting became a rally.

One of the better speeches that day came from a young Tory MP, then shadow leader of the house – and as such unknown to any but the keenest political trainspotters. He had sat on the home affairs committee considerations of the proposals for “entitlement cards” and was very clear that this was an horrific scheme, and that the danger was not the card, but the database. His name: David Cameron.